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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Nothing went right for the Devils Friday night as far as their playoff hopes.

They lost 2-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning and every team that they are trying to either climb over or catch that was playing earned at least one point. The most costly result was Carolina's 4-1 win over Pittsburgh, which pushed the Devils back to 11 points behind the Hurricanes for the final playoff spot in the East with 21 games remaining. (The Hurricanes play Montreal tonight.)

“We’ve been on a really good roll and we battled back from a long stretch,” center Jason Arnott said. “It was disappointing. Last night was a biggie for us. All of the other teams ended up winning that we didn’t need to win and now we’re further away. So, it’s tough, but we’ve got to stick with out game plan and keep going.”

The Devils had won eight in a row before Friday's loss and are still 16-2-2 in their last 20 games, but their margin for error is so small that one defeat was a significant blow. To have any chance to still pull off this playoff miracle, however, they can't dwell on it too long. They have to rebound right away in Sunday's game against the Florida Panthers (who traded Bryan McCabe to the Rangers today).

“I think they’ll be fine,” head coach Jacques Lemaire said. “The last couple of games I’ve been talking that we could play better. I wasn’t happy, but we won and (Friday), you know what? We got bad breaks. At a time, that’s what happens. You abuse the good things and then you pay the price.”

It would have been understandable, though, if the Devils were discouraged by Friday's results. They finally lose a game and get no help elsewhere.

“To stay excited, you’ve got to go on and win, win, win, win,” Lemaire said. “As soon as you lose a game, it takes you back two games. That’s what happens. So, if you’ve got a game, you’ve got to win and you’ve got to keep winning. The other teams, they’ll win game as soon as you lose one.”

The Devils knew they were not going to win every game over the remainder of the season. In fact, the 16-1-2 surge they had surprised them as much as everyone else.

“I think we’ve been expecting this,” goaltender Martin Brodeur said. “We want to do that well, but it’s kind of hard to have that expectation. We’re happy with what we accomplished and even though it was a loss, we feel we did a lot of good things. We almost came back in the game and guys are pretty good today and you move on. Every day is a different day and we’re going to go one at a time like we’ve said.

“We don’t have time to start thinking about how we lost [Friday]. We look at it. We lost these two faceoffs and we move on. We have no choice.”

Brodeur will get back in net Sunday with the season pretty much on the line with every game. Another loss to the Panthers, who have defeated them twice in overtime this season, could bring changes before Monday's 3 p.m. trade deadline.

Even if Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello decides not to make any moves before the deadline, however, the Devils probably can't afford to lose more four or five more games.

Does that put additional pressure on the players?

“We know it’s going to be hard,” Brodeur said. “We’ve been feeling that pressure since Jacques came back. We knew we didn’t have much time to get ourselves together. It took probably a little longer than Jacques would have loved. It took six or seven games, but after that we started rolling. We’re in a position now with 21 games (left) that we have to win the majority of them. Regardless of if we lose now and win the rest or win all of them and lose (at the end). We have to win a lot more than we can lose. It’s not an easy situation. We’re not looking ahead. We’re looking at tomorrow and trying to figure it out.

“It’s been a long trip. We’re going to rest up all day tomorrow and get ourselves ready.”

***Lemaire still wasn't happy with how the team allowed both Tampa Bay goals off lost faceoffs. Again, he said it was not the centers' faults.

“You saw that in the old days more,” Lemaire said. “Now, on a faceoff, getting a goal, you don’t see that too often. Not this way. I don’t see this much. A guy wins the faceoff, it goes to the point, somebody goes in front, gets a shot, tip, it goes in, fine. But right where the guys were, getting a shot there. Come on. Somebody’s sleeping.”

***The mystery of Mattias Tedenby's playing time continues. Tedenby played only six shifts for 1:40 in ice time Friday, including just two shifts for 17 seconds in the third period,

Tedenby's only shifts in the third period were one for 11 seconds with the Devils on the power play. That ended with his holding penalty on Brett Clark. His other shift lasted the six seconds it took for him to get from the penalty box to the bench.

That's it.

In a game in which the Devils were trailing and needed offense, it might have crossed Lemaire's mind to give a player with the offensive skill of Tedenby more of an opportunity.

“I did at a certain time,” Lemaire said. “I tried and then he got the penalty. What do you do after this?”

Lemaire claimed he gave Tedenby two more shifts after his penalty, but the official ice time statistics do not back that up.

As it was, Lemaire went down to three lines in the third period and David Clarkson, Rod Pelley and Tedenby ended up sitting for long stretches as a result.

“Somebody’s got to sit," Lemaire said. "The three lines that I had were going well. But the other guys, I know nobody was happy. But you go with what you’ve got, how you’re doing, how many passes, how many plays you make so we can (decide) who is playing at the end."

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.